Determination of the efficacy of signal detectors

An efficacy measure for signal detectors is considered that takes into account not only the usual values of detection probability and false alarm probability but also the time between succeeding decisions. A general detector is described with the characteristics of time which contributes to its decisions. With this general detector the decision mechanism of any detector can be described. The calculation of this efficacy measure is based on the mean time between alarms, which is a function of the detection probability, the false alarm probability, and the time between succedding decisions. The mean time between detections and the mean time between false alarms is calculated as a function of the mean time between alarms.